Oh btw, if you google at who funds "Economic Policy Institute" cited in the article, 29% of the it's funds come from Trade Unions , not to disparage TUs, many have realized that immigration fuels growth helps them more, but some botch the data.

Another reader (Alex S) has already posted a link pointing with an opposite conclusion citing the Bureau of Labor Stats , Census Bureau and the rt. wing Brookings. This is more in line with our experience of the ground reality difficulty of hiring STEMs in the market place

You took the words right out of mouth, realtimeshary. As soon as I saw that name I knew this had to ba agenda oriented. And that leads to another question: If this is known why not present to us readers a point of view (in this case an employment study) from a contrasting or alternate source/point of view?

The STEM movement just started a few years ago, these scholars are either currently enroll in a college high-tech program or getting ready to attend college. But the US future is bright. As an educator, I had the honor of working with 30 high school students within a two week STEM program in Texas this summer. I was more than impressed. These students attended class, were well behaved, and had a notebook and a pencil ready to take notes. I don't know anything about these different studies. One thing that I do know, STEM jobs are available. But are today's college graduates willing to travel or relocate? Are today's college graduates willing to accept a reasonable salary to prove that they are worth a salary increase? There are a lot of factors to consider when seeking a job. At the college where I work, we are having a hard time recruiting computer science and engineering faculty to teach. Why? The applicants don't have the qualifications. Companies need people who want to work and are willing to work. I don't know what questions appeared on the survey, but I would be interested in knowing what steps the students are taking when they apply for these STEM jobs. Once again, STEM jobs are available.

There are so many reasons US workers aren't hired I wouldn't even try and count them all here, I'll say on background this is an entirely different era than when I was in high school and everyone seemed to be worried that the Soviets would win the space race, but we have so much "basic technology" in place now that companies aren't really "lookinig for technology heroes", they just want lower costs. One of the bigger problems US students do have is gullibility, they listen to the promotions of all these vested interests and actually believe them. Anyone who gets into some silly robotics competition and believes that writing a program to make some dumb robot run around a ring and beat up other robots is going to help him find a job deserves what his stupidity has brought to his pursuit of a career.

I guess I could mention that one reason I didn't see enumerated here is student loan debt. If you believe what companies are telling you about companies being unable to hire people with advanced degrees, it means you'll probably stay in school and get one or two. Meantime students in many other countries are getting what education they can with government aid and their tuition is sometimes even totally comped. Does this mean I'm in favor of more government aid or lower student loan interest rates? Hah! US companies will ALWAYS find an excuse to hire at the lowest rate they can find, and someone who carries debt is an unattractive candidate because he'll ultinately be seeking to be compensated at a rate high enough to pay it off, and that alone will render him an unattractive hire.

Except for a very few of the best-capitalized outfits they aren't really even looking for engineers or even technicians, they just want to hire some glorified "technically-trained clerks" who will perform some duties without making too many mistakes, but who will be around to "take the fall" in a culture where managers actually NEED to have technical employees around in a "management of blame" corporate culture. In an environment like that, for a given manager to succeed he needs to have workers around who "didn't do the job they were assigned the way they were supposed to" (translation: a hanful of engineers couldn't write and integrate a few million lines of new software in a couple of weeks) so that despite repeated project failures the manager can still acquit his efforts and move up to mahogany row and make millions in salary, stock grants and bonuses. Moral: if you want to succeed in business, get an MBA and learn to lie and blame others a lot, but DON'T get into engineering!

The H1-B system is flawed because it is based on the hiring firms. The situation distorts the market, allowing firms to bring in workers effectively from a separate pool that will accept lower wages and that have less power to bargain with their employer because they are dependent on the employer for their visa.

The system needs to be replaced with one that grants visas based on talent and education. This will add to the talent pool in the US, but the economy is not a zero sum game. More talent here means more companies can start, stay and grow here. Placing foreign workers into the same market as US citizens and disentangling the visas from the hiring firms is a critical step. It's obvious why the big companies and to perpetuate and expand this distortion, though, to the detriment of US citizens.

This is done to simply to keep the costs down by depressing all wages. All employers claim (to varying degrees of truthfullness) that they pay H1B visa holders and US citizents the same amount of money for the same job. Even when this is true, this is used as an excuse to pay everybody less. By doing this, the employers avoid the accusation of using H1B holders as cheap labor, and simultaneously get to pay other employees at the same level as H1B employees. What a way to double dip!

Without any H1B visas, the wages will rise in the US, and eventually a balance of supply and demand will be established. More STEM graduates will be hired, but everybody (recent graduate or not) will make more money. And most importantly, there will be no shortage of well trained employees. The companies respond that without the H1B visas, they will have move some jobs overseas. These is partial truth in that, but they have been doing that anyway even with abondant number H1B employees. Some companies have learned that the cheap labor overseas is often worth only what you paid for it. So the smart ones start hiring here even if the wages are higher.

In conjunction with unveiling of EE Timesí Silicon 60 list, journalist & Silicon 60 researcher Peter Clarke hosts a conversation on startups in the electronics industry. One of Silicon Valley's great contributions to the world has been the demonstration of how the application of entrepreneurship and venture capital to electronics and semiconductor hardware can create wealth with developments in semiconductors, displays, design automation, MEMS and across the breadth of hardware developments. But in recent years concerns have been raised that traditional venture capital has turned its back on hardware-related startups in favor of software and Internet applications and services. Panelists from incubators join Peter Clarke in debate.